University of Pittsburgh- Of the Commonwealth System of Higher Education
Friendship in Fuenmayor: Patterns of Integration in an Atomistic Society
Author(s): David Gilmore
Source: Ethnology, Vol. 14, No. 4 (Oct., 1975), pp. 311-324
Published by: University of Pittsburgh- Of the Commonwealth System of Higher Education
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Friendship in Fuenmayor:
Patterns of Integration in an
Atomistic Societyt
David Gilmore
University of Pennsylvania
Atomistic-type societies are defined as those in which the nuclear family
represents "the major structuralunit and, indeed, almost the only formalized
social entity" (Rubel and Kupferer 1968: 189). Many anthropologists working in social contexts which fit this description have reached the conclusion
that there has been an overemphasis on divisiveness in such societies (Galt
1973: 325; cf. Miller 1974). Although most observers would agree that the
"amoral familism" (Banfield I958) and "limited good" (Foster 1965) models
are useful for conceptualizing some of the more striking aspects of group
dynamics and community attitudes in atomistic societies, there is now an
effort underway to delineate the less visible mechanisms which counteract
these divisive tendencies and which promote co-operation-necessary to some
degree in all societies-between individuals who live in atomistic-type
milieux (Piker i968; E. Cohen i972; Galt I973; Miller 1974).
This trend parallels the increasing analytical emphasis which anthropologists involved in community studies are currently placing on the range
of microstructural interpersonal relations which nonkin enter into of their
own free will in order to satisfy specific cultural needs (Wolf 1966; Honigman 1968) and which reflect what Firth (95I : 35ff) called the optative
aspect of social relations. Some examples of this genre of interpersonal relations are "social networks" involving unstructured and potentially limitless groups, "egocentric" coalitions and "non-groups" involving bounded
sets (Boissevain I968), and voluntary "dyadic contracts" involving two
individuals (Foster I96I).
One of these loosely ordered relationships has been cited a number of
times as a mechanism which hypothetically mitigates atomism-that of
friendship (Honigman i968: 224; cf. Eisenstadt 1956: 94; Foster i960: 178).
The purpose of this paper is to substantiate this inference by showing how
friendship works effectively to counteractindividual alienation in a classically
atomistic community characterizedby a lack of alternative dyads like patronage and fictive kinship (Wolf i966; Foster 1967: 9; Hammel 1968) and
to explore more fully the nature and role of friendship in contemporary
society. Our discussion is divided into three parts. In the first part, we de3I1
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312
ETHNOLOGY
scribe three different patterns of friendship which are practiced concurrently
in a Spanish community, showing how each friendship pattern unfolds on a
distinct level of communal social interaction:2 the first on the public level of
peer-group interaction, the second on the level of household interaction, and
the third on the private and purely individual level. In the second part, we
show how these three friendship patterns devolve naturally and often
sequentially in the life cycle in such a way as to neutralize atomistic
isolation for many people. Last, we show how a superordinate ideology of
friendship gives rise to correlativepersonality ideals which fortify and underwrite the informal ties which bind the society together at all levels.
FUENMAYOR:
THE
CULTURAL SETTING
Fuenmayor3 is a rural community (pueblo) of approximately 8,000 people
located equidistant between the provincial capitals of Seville and C6rdoba in
the center of the Guadalquivir River Depression of Southwestern Spain.
Seventy-eight per cent of the pueblo's economically active population are
engaged in commercial agriculture, mainly the dry-farming of wheat, mill
olives, and sunflowers. The rest of the population is involved in subordinate
service industries or in the town's political bureaucracy.Pastoral practicesmainly sheep and goat herding-are weakly developed, involving only one
per cent of the work force, and there is no important productive enterprise
other than agriculture.
In regards to social structure,the people of Fuenmayor have definite ideas
and divide their community into three discrete strata which they refer to as
classes. Occupying the highest class position are the senoritos (little lords),
an educated elite group of large landowners who make up one per cent of
the total population and who control about 52 per cent of the productive
land in the termino, or municipal territory. Occupying the middle stratum
are the mayetes, or small-holding cultivators. The mayeteria, that is, the
agrarian middle-class, constitutes about 22 per cent of the total population
and controls about 44 per cent of the land in the termino. Last in status are
the jornaleros. These are landless day-laborerswho work sporadicallyin the
farms of the landowning classes for a daily wage (jornal), or who migrate
seasonally to other areas in Spain or to Northern Europe to find employment.
These rural proletarians make up about 56 per cent of the pueblo's population and control about 2 per cent of the land in the termino. In addition to
these three primary classes, the Fuenmayoreiios recognize the existence of
a parallel commercial middle-class of shopkeepers which is said to stand
apart from the main three-fold class structure.
In this particular area of Southwestern Spain (Martinez-Alier 1971: 314315), the extreme upper and lower classes are not socially integrated by
traditional institutions other than the cash nexus of seasonal agrarian employment. Moreover, longstanding political tensions and class hostilities,
exacerbated by memories of local Civil War violence and postwar reprisals,
prevent the formation of co-operativeinformal vertical dyads like "patronage"
between rich and poor (Gilmore I975a; i975b). Patronage, in fact, is
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FRIENDSHIP
IN FUENMAYOR
313
systematically extended by the rich landowners only to their permanent
employees, who represent a tiny fraction of the pueblo's total work force.
Symmetrical social relations (Foster I96I: 1174) which unfold entirely
within one class appear at first glance to be similarly strained. Informants
claimed that no one outside the nuclear family can be trusted and that
neighbors are the perpetratorsof lios (entanglements), enganas (deceit), and
desfalcos (chicanery). Moreover, the workers of the pueblo must compete
with their class peers for daily employment in the market place and landowners are likewise engaged in competition with each other for land and
employees. There are no co-operative associations or mutual aid groups in
the pueblo, except among the upper-class, and the majority of non-elite
people do not participate voluntarily in political or religious activities nor
in clubs which might provide a basis for group membership. Trade unions
and workers' syndicates do not exist because they are forbidden by state
law. In a purely structural sense, therefore, each family operates independently, as a separate unit.
Curiously, Fuenmayorenos make very little use of the obvious and traditional Hispanic dyadic contracts to form interfamilial alliances. For example, godparenthood (compa.drazgo) is almost always a "thing of the
family," that is, a duplication of pre-existing kinship ties. Consequently, the
fictive kin complexes of Latin America and South Italian communities
(Mintz and Wolf I950; Moss and Cappannari i960) are lacking here.
The following discussion focuses exclusively upon adult male companionship in the mayete and jornalero classes and does not attempt an analysis of
interclass friendship, but the statements made during the course of the
analysis pertain equally to intraclassbehavior among the commercial middleclass and among the senoritos. The data, however, do not apply to either
women or children, both of whom practice quite different patterns of friendship from those described for men.
OFFRIENDSHIP
PATTERNS
Fuenmayorefios recognize the existence of three distinct types of friendship relation, each having its own unique roles and norms. The first type is
simply called amistad (friendship), a term which in this case may be
characterized as an elipsis meaning "casual friendship" (Y. Cohen I96I).
The second type of friendship is referred to as compromiso, or "commitment," and the third type of friendship is called amistad de confianza, or
"friendship of trust."
Casual Friendship: Peer-group Integration
As in most societies in which male and female worlds are strictly segregated and in which people fear gossip, the inhabitants of Fuenmayor make
a clear distinction between public and private space. Private space (en casa)
is confined to the home (casa) and is experienced only by members of the
nuclear family or bilateral kindred. Within the walls of the house, the family
maintains a secluded and concealed existence. Access to this private realm
is forbidden to all outsiders with the exception of close kinsmen, and nonkin
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314
ETHNOLOGY
are admitted into the house during certain rites de passage and crises at
which times limited areasof the house are opened momentarily and then just
as abruptly closed.
Public space (en la calle) is the outdoors area of the pueblo which is
necessarily and unavoidably shared by a number of nonkin. This includes
the streets, the plazas, and the public places of business, but especially the
bars, taverns, and casinos of the pueblo. The latter represent the main arena
for daily social interaction and are the locales for casual friendship.
Every man in the pueblo has one favorite neighborhood bar, tavern,
casino, or other public establishment where he goes every evening without
fail to meet with his cronies. A typical bar begins to fill up about 7:00 in
the evening and by 9:oo p.m. is usually crowded with its "regulars"who
return home at Io:oo for dinner, but who sometimes reappear in the bar
at a very late hour for a nightcap. The men spend the long evening hours
chatting amiably, exchanging jokes and stories, and, in a contagiously convival mood, inviting each other continually to copitas (drinks of beer or
wine) and generously passing around packs of strong black tobacco. The
men who interact nightly in this way are, as they themselves insist firmly,
"good friends" (mu' amigo'). An "acquaintance" (conocido) is "someone
you know only by name," that is, someone who lives in another part of town
and who patronizes another neighborhood bar.
While the generous behavior of these friends seems to be motivated only
by a disinterested companionship and to be devoid of calculations, one
soon notices that a subtle etiquette is being scrupulously observed which has
the effect of conjoining the entire company of "regulars"in a system of
sanctioned reciprocal exchange. While the drinks and cigarettes are offered
without apparent thought of repayment, a man who accepts an "invitation"
is expected to "invite" the company to the next round. While it is not said
openly, it is a gross delict for a man to accept more than two or three
drinks in succession without "inviting" his hosts. On the other hand, it is
viewed as equally inappropriatefor a man continually to invite his friends
without accepting anything in return. Such behavior would indicate that
the actor was either "trying to get something" or was a "fool" (bobo) who
was stupidly allowing himself to be exploited.
The underlying principle operating is an immediate and balanced reciprocity by which everyone benefits in the long run. Since everyone in the
bar interacts on equal terms and joins in these transactions,there being no
solitary drinkers or small cliques, the entire peer-group society is by
definition enmeshed in an on-going system of continual reciprocations.This
systematic exchange leads to integration in the sense of establishing commensurate expectations and values among the participants (Barth I966: 13I4).
The emotional culmination of this transactionalkind of friendship is the
institution of the juerga (spree). Fuenmayorefios believe that a man cannot survive without resorting to periodic bursts of frenzied social activity in
which he refreshes himself emotionally through drunkenness and high
spirits (ambiente). The customary way of doing this is through the en-
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FRIENDSHIP
IN FUENMAYOR
315
listment of some of one's casual bar friends in an extended binge. The comrades who agree to join in the juerga skip work and meet in the usual bar
where they begin to drink. Occasionally, only a few preparatorycopitas are
exchanged and then the friends will travel to a neighboring community to
continue their revels there. This is in fact a common practice for gossip-shy
townsmen, and the Fuenmayorenos are well known for their drunken romps
in near-by pueblos, where they have acquired a certain measure of notoriety
as juerguistas.
Despite the obvious pleasure which the casual bar friends find in exchanging invitations and the exhilarating fun of the juerga which they share
together, the relationship of casual friendship is not one of intimacy. Aside
from the material reciprocationsof the bar and the observation of the social
norms of the juerga, there are no important obligations of either a social or
economic nature which are recognized by people who interact only on this
superficiallevel. For example, it is consideredinappropriatefor a casual friend
to ask for money or for the loan of a comrade's motorcycle or tools-things
which are essential to the workers. Nor do the casual friends "open" themselves to each other by speaking of their domestic problems or private feelings. Such indiscretions are considered risky from the standpoint of possible
gossip and inimical to the carefree spirit of the peer-group society.
The value of casual friendship is thus limited to the "public" arena:
while uniting the participants in a benevolent exchange network and
establishing the friendly norms for public conduct, such a relationship cannot counteract the individual's private doubts. The casual friends therefore
still remain inwardly cynical and anxious about each other's motives. For
example, many informants complained caustically in private that the patterned expressions of friendly intent such as invitations are only shams
which mask an underlying self-interest and egoism. One man said, "What
is amistad? Nothing but egoism. I buy you a drink, you buy me a drink. I
give you tobacco, you give me tobacco. Each of us is getting something out
of it." Therefore, in order to establish more secure personal bonds, Fuenmayoreiios have devised more trustworthy forms of friendship which are
fortified and protected by important obligations and sanctions. These bonds
are called compromiso and confianza.
Compromiso: An Instrumental Bond Between Households4
When casual bar friends respect each other and come to accept each other's
intentions as benign, they may begin to exchange favors beyond the limits
of the bar. For example, two casual friends who have helped each other
to find employment a number of times may find it convenient to protect
their mutually beneficial relationship. These friends will demonstrate a
deeper co-operative impulse by offering personal services of a type which
will eventually involve the active participation of their respective families.
The increased interaction which follows permits a change of locale from
the bar to the private world of the home. These changes in role and locale
involve both the male actors and their nuclear kinsmen in a new series of
high-level obligations and duties which are inherited by successive genera-
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316 ETHNOLOGY
tions and which therefore tend to form permanent alliances between families.
The households which are so bound are said to "have compromiso." The
actors so involved are "friends who have colmpromiso."Friends who choose
to "have compromiso" are committed to express their solidarity in certain
prescribed ways. For example, if an amigo with whom one has compromiso
falls ill, one must go to his bedside to render services to his household should
the need arise. If a member of the committed family dies, one must attend
the veld (wake) and the funeral the next day to demonstrate one's commitment. After the funeral, one must make the pesame to the survivors;
this entails waiting in line to take the survivors' hand and murmuring Ay,
que me pesa (How sad I am). People who are not bound by compromisocasual friends for example-may simply "nod the head." This silent condolence is called the cabeza (nod), and symbolizes a casual relationship of
less importance than compromiso.
The perception of the compromiso link in the pueblo is realistic and
utilitarian: the supportive acts demanded by the relationship are rarely performed out of affection alone, being more often motivated by a sense of
duty, as most people concede. In fact, these acts are sometimes said to involve
an annoying personal sacrifice. For example, when questioned as to why
they were doing such-and-such a favor for someone, Fuenmayoreiios frequently replied, "Because I have compromiso with the family and I have to
go (hay que cumpli) even though it is very sacrificial (mu' sacrifica'o)."
Thus, while the bond of compromiso may be more useful and more secure
to the participants, it resembles the superficial and selfserving companionship of the bars in that participants' emotional goals and expectations remain the same. Like the invitations to drinks, each sacrifice called for by
compromiso involves the clear expectation of a balanced reciprocity; one
complies (cumplir) only to ensure the equivalency, and everyone admits that
self-interest still plays a major role. As one man said, "Who will come to
my funeral if I don't comply? Who will help me out when I am sick?"
Another man who was encountered on his way to a wake explained his
behavior by stating, "I go only to comply, not for the pleasure of it."
If there is a violation of the strict and overriding reciprocityprinciple, for
example, if the friend does not immediately comply when the time arises,
this nonfulfillment is often interpreted as a purposeful deceit and the relationship is thenceforth thought to be exploitative by the aggrieved party.
The tie is no longer conceived as one of commitment, but a lio, (entanglement). A lio is a dreaded situation of unbearable tension which must be
quickly rectified either through a fulfillment of the obligation, or, if this
does not occur, through a termination of the relationship and its replacement by the negative reciprocity (Sahlins I965: 148) of nosehablan (not
speaking). The constant danger of precipitating lios ensures the symmetry
of the bond, for a deceitful man who becomes known as a lioso tends to be
shunned by his peers and gradually to loose his ability to initiate rewarding
relationships. Thus, most people avoid an exploitative calculus in compromiso situations.
Fuenmayoreiios are aware that the relationship of compromiso is a
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FRIENDSHIP
IN FUENMAYOR
317
brittle and pointedly expedient tie which can lead only so far in terms of the
emotional gratification an individual can derive from it. People do not become confidants on this basis and there is still a reticence and a vigilance in
the behavior of the friends in respect to each other's loyalty and trustworthiness. The residue of doubt in compromiso is revealed unmistakably by
the fact that the committed friends still fear each other as potential sources
of malicious gossip. As one man put it:
Whether you have compromisoor not, egoism and self-intereststill play a part. People
only comply because they are afraid of being alone. Someone with whom you have
compromiso will still tell (contar) the things which you have confided to him. What's
to stop him?
Thus, even committed friendship is inadequate to neutralize the underlying
agonistic ethos in the pueblo because it lacks a mechanism for obviating
gossip and for relieving the fear of gossip. Despite the firm instrumental
alliance between the families there is still no haven from gossip and slander
and therefore no emotional release for the individual who must still remain
bottled up emotionally. In order to achieve that emotional sanctuary still
lacking, most people seek to establish a more intimate friendship tie, that of
amistad de confianza.
Confianza: A Dyadic Tie Leading to Emotional Fulfillment
Confianza literally means confidence or trust. Friends who find themselves
emotionally compatible and who decide to share a confianza relationship are
known as amigos de confianza (friends of trust). People state that the bond
of confianza comes about only in one way: when there is an unqualified
"opening" of the heart to a close friend, a voluntary and unreserved surrender of the concealed private sphere of life, or as one man put it, "when
the two friends tell each other the secrets and personal things they carry
with them." This act of mutual surrender, if successful, creates a kind of
personal non-aggression pact, an "inalienable" gossip-proof alliance (Y.
Cohen I96I), for neither of the two friends can now divulge secrets without
endangering himself. Moreover, because they now share the most intimate
aspects of their private lives together and because they have willingly renounced self-interest in their relationship, they now share a single, merged
social identity, like the kinsmen who experience the sequestered life of the
home together. Consequently, as the people point out when explaining the
meaning of "trust,"the distinguishing characteristicof the covenanted amigo
de confianza is his absolute refusal under any circumstances to "tell" on his
alter, to betray a confidence. One man explained it this way: "The friend
of trust does not tell on his friend no matter what happens. Even if a man
came to him and offered him a sum of money for the secret, he would not
tell it." Some people, in fact, use the phrases, "friend of trust" and "friend of
secrets"interchangeably.
Once the confianza relationship has been established through the exchange
of secrets, there is an intensification of social interaction and the pre-existing commitment reaches new levels of intimacy. For example, the trusted
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318 ETHNOLOGY
friend will not only attend the veld in his alter's household, but he will also
stay all night and go without sleep. The next day, the trusted friend will
not only attend the funeral, but he will also accompany the coffin to the
cemetary, acting as a pall-bearerif requested to do so, and will remain for
the interment-acts which are otherwise expected only of close kinsmen.
Such supportive behavior, however, differs not only in degree from that demanded by compromiso, but also in motivation. According to informants
none of these acts is perceived as involving a sacrifice. They are performed
not reluctantly out of a sense of obligation, but eagerly and without calculations. This support is rendered, it is claimed, not for the "commitment" to
the family, nor for the expectation of future returns, but for the "friendship"
itself, for the "feelings" from the heart which the two men share as individuals.
Because the relationshipof confianza is based on affection and is ostensibly
devoid of self-interest,the establishment of trust transcends and obviates the
need for immediate displays of intentions, for the friends no longer entertain
doubts nor operate on a social level where benevolence must be constantly
expressed through "transactions"of balanced reciprocity (Barth 1966: 4).
Hence, the equivalent interchange of copitas, cigarettes,and other objects and
symbols ceases when confianza is introduced and these low-level exchanges
gradually become inconsequential. For example, one informant attempted to
illustrate confianza by stating, "I can buy my friend two drinks, or three,
or four, and he doesn't have to buy me anything in return. That's because
we have confianza!"
The bond of confianza unites the two actors as individuals, not as
representatives of a kin group or other polyadic social entity. Although a
man may have more than one friend of trust, these relations remain discretely dyadic, and even close kinsmen may be excluded from participating
in the relationship by being denied access to the shared secrets.For example,
one man related the following story in order to illustrate this particular
aspect of confianza:
My friendJuantold me a secretabouthimself.His fathercameoverand triedto get
it out of me. But I wouldn't say a word. Well, finally Juan'sfather got so mad that
he threatened to fight with me if I didn't tell, but still I held my tongue. That's
confianza!5
FRIENDSHIP
AND THE LIFE CYCLE
The three patternsof friendship we have describedare primarily adult male
phenomena. Children practice distinctive forms of mainly group fellowship
and rarely have close individual friends. Women sometimes have confidantes
before marriage but rarely retain close friends after marriage when they are
encouraged to terminate frivolous activities. Nor do women visit the bars
and taverns where most adult friendships are initiated and played out. In
later life, in fact, a woman's social ties tend gradually to dwindle to the
people in her own family constellation and especially to her own mother
and daughters.
On the other hand, the men of the pueblo find that their friendships are
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FRIENDSHIP
IN FUENMAYOR
319
deepening and their social networks expanding in later life rather than
narrowing. In fact, the three friendship patterns flow naturally and in many
cases sequentially from the masculine life cycle in such a way as to make
an extensive and comfortable social network inevitable for most mature
males. A brief description of the life cycle will reveal the mechanics of this
process.
The first stage of a boy's life is that of ninez (childhood), a period which
is said to last from birth until the age of six of seven years. While a nino,
the male child is usually a member of a play group (grupito), which forms
in his street and in which boys and girls often play together. When the child
reaches the age of seven or eight, he becomes a chico (boy), and is no longer
considered a child. The grupitos then begin to separate according to sex.
When the boys meet new friends in school, the now entirely male play
group may be further changed and expanded by the addition of new members. A little later, in early adolescence, the childhood play group is superseded by the more formal pandilla (band). The pandilla may include members from all over the pueblo, but it usually retains a neighborhood core and
incorporates the grupito playmates. It is normally composed of six or seven
boys and is almost always segregated sexually.
The pandilla persists until middle adolescenceat which time the chico now
becomes a zagal (youth). At this point, the pandilla begins to serve another
purpose which adds momentarily to its value-an instrument for courtship.
On Sunday evenings, when the people take to the streets and plazas for
their traditional paseo, the pandillas coalesce and promenade up and down
the streets. The boys and girls look each other over collectively and many
courtships are begun in this manner.
Finally, in late adolescence, the boys and girls begin to pair off independently and the pandillas begin to lose much of their importance for the individual. At about the age of eighteen or nineteen, a boy begins to court a
girl seriously and becomes her official novio (fiance). At this time, the
young people begin going out in parejas (pairs), and the pandillas are reactivated only on holidays and other special occasions.
The final blow to the masculine pandilla is the compulsory military service
which begins at age twenty. The boys are conscripted in the Army or Navy
and sent to various barracks in different parts of the country. When they
return to the pueblo two years later, they have matured and they have
new interests and obligations. They are no longer zagales, but hormbres,and
they begin to feel the pressure to get married.
After marriage, a man begins to re-establish his neighborhood childhood
ties, to make new friends, and to weave from these many relationships a web
of mature bonds which will endure for the rest of his life. While his wife
is immersing herself in the care of the home and is gradually sloughing off
her old ties to friends, the husband begins to integrate himself comfortably
into adult masculine society of the neighborhood bar, which he now visits
every night. In fact, after marriage, most men spend all their free time in
the bars and go home only to eat and to sleep. At first, a man takes up with
his former pandilla-mates, who as neighbors, also attend the same local
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320
ETHNOLOGY
bar or tavern, but soon he is incorporated into the bar's exchange network
and is routinely trading copitas, cigarettes, and jokes with all of the bar's
regulars. In a short time, he becomes a casual good friend to everyone in
the bar.
As a young man's family expands and his economic needs escalate, he
begins to co-operate more closely with the more compatible and useful of
these companions as well as with new friends. Soon a man is sharing a committed relationship with a few of these closer friends, and eventually a bond
of "trust" will come about from one or more of these friendships. In many
cases, the partnersin amistad de confianza are former childhood friends who
have already established a prior relationship of commitment, or whose
fathers were so bound. Thus, in a very real sense, the three friendship patterns form optional steps or stages in a single dynamic process.
THE IDEOLOGYOF FRIENDSHIP
The ability of friendship to insulate a man and his family from social and
economic harm is only one aspect of the role of amistad in the pueblo
society. The word amistad refers not only to a concrete social relationship between two or more people, but also to an ethical and behavioral ideal. It is
in this more abstract second sense that friendship regulates all routine
symmetrical social interaction in the pueblo, even that between acquaintances
who patronize different bars, and acts as a mechanism for social control in
the public life of the community as a whole.
The people of Fuenmayor think of friendship as the ultimate social good
in a basically untrustworthy world, as the one fixed moral point in the
amoral flux of life outside the casa's walls. Of "true friendship" in general,
the people often state that "to have true friends is to be happy." It is not
surprising therefore that the senoritos have named their private social club
El Casino Amistad (the Friendship Club), in an attempt to invoke the
highest moral value in the society, for this is the one social postulate that
the rich and poor share equally.
The veneration and longing for true friendship in the pueblo is reflected
in the sanguine image which the people entertain of themselves and their
own community. Townsmen, no matter what their class or occupation,
think of their pueblo as an inordinately friendly place and of themselves in
equal terms. They often dwell upon this imagined characteristic,in fact,
more so than upon any other single social or cultural trait.
The importance of friendship and "friendliness"in the moral life of the
society is reflected in the conceptualization of the ideal personality. Fuenmayorenios distinguish between two polar types of personality. The first,
which is highly admired by everyone, is the "open" (abierto) type. The
second, which is condemned in equal measure, is "closed" (cerra'o). The
open personality manifests itself through social extroversion: an open man
"gives of himself" continually; he acts openly and frankly, spends most of
his time in the bars, and, perhaps most importantly, he enters unreservedly
into exchanges of minor commodities such as drinks and cigarettes. The
closed man, on the other hand, is secretive and withholds not only himself,
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FRIENDSHIP IN FUENMAYOR 321
but also his intentions and his money from public inspection. Instead of
appearing nightly in the neighborhood bar and generously exchanging conversation and things, he remains secluded indoors. Clearly, it is thought, he
has something to hide which this introverted behavior is meant to conceal.
Since a man's personal reputation (fama) and by implication his potential
to serve as a friend on higher levels depends upon his acceptance by the
peer-group as an "open person" (una persona abierta), most men who seek
peer approval strive to make frequent appearancesin the bars, to avoid lios,
and to act in a generous extroverted manner which conforms to the expectations of the open personality ideal. Thus, most men are inevitably
drawn into the exchange systems of the bars and are led subsequently into
relationships of intimate friendship involving commitment and trust. The
open behavior which wins peer approval not only encourages the formation
of concrete friendships and discourages lios, but also tends to become
internalized as an integral aspect of a man's self-image. In this way, the
binary personality framework creates behavioral models in the sense of
desirable ideals which encourage the continual enlargement of friendship
networks. Each man attempts to win as many friends as possible not only
in order to provide security and personal satisfactions, but also because his
reputation and his self-esteem depend upon his doing so.
CONCLUSION
Like the other informal microstructuresmentioned above, friendship has
been characterized as a residual (Barnes 1954: 42-43; Pitt-Rivers I968: 413),
supplementaryor interstitial relationship (Wolf 1966:2), as something which
is "left over" when all the other structural components of the society have
been analytically removed (Paine 1969: 520). This conception has been
questioned by Whitten and Wolfe (1973: 722) and others (Boissevain 1968)
who feel that interpersonal networks may also be primary structures.As the
data from Fuenmayor show, because friendship may provide the moral and
modal basis for many forms of alliance and may extend to many interactive
levels, encompassing dyads, family coalitions, and extensive networks, it may
represent the focal category of co-operative activity in an atomistic community where other forms of contractual interaction are lacking or insignificant. The residualness of friendship therefore seems to correlate negatively to the degree of organizational and operational denseness of the
society, that is, the degree to which social, economic, and psychological resources are provided by the range of alternative groupings traditionally
practiced, a correlation implicitly suggested by Wolf (I966: io) and Barnes
(1972:
2). We have seen that in a typically atomistic community
in which
class hostility eliminates a strategy of seeking patronage and where a lack
of emphasis upon fictive kinship negates the alliance potential of cormpadrazgo, friendship is adapted to fill these structural deficits. Indeed, interfamilial co-operation derives almost exclusively from the practice of friendship. In fact, all co-operative and rewarding behavior in Fuenmayor is
phrased in a friendship (rather than in a kinship) idiom (Gulliver I97I:
30o-2). Thus, to conversely paraphrasePaine (1969: 510), there are societies
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322
ETHNOLOGY
which in fact do seem to depend upon friendship for social control and
smooth functioning.
Through what social and psychological processesdoes friendship "mitigate
atomism" in the society? Friendship appears to counteract individual isolation is three ways. First, friendship, unlike other voluntary contracts, is a
polymorphous all-purpose relationship which the people can use to form
coalitions with any number of partnerson all levels of communal interaction.
On the group level friendship forms a network, on the household level it
forms bipolar coalitions, and on the individual level it forms inalienable
dyads. On each of these levels, friendship is institutionalized through ritual
forms of reciprocal exchange which sustain the co-operative nature of the
tie. These ritualized transactions reduce individual anxieties by inducing
face-to-face interaction, regularizing values and normative expectations, and
thereby eliminating ambiguity in social life (Barth 1966: 14).
Second, friendship, as noted by Reina (1959) and as emphasized recently
by Pitt-Rivers (1973: 96) is a unique relationship in that it is neither
structurally anchored nor static. Being a changeful state of mind and a
cumulative feeling as well as a set of rules and roles, it has none of the
constrained equilibrium of more formal role-sets and it often escalates in
intensity over time without external stimuli. Thus superficial forms of
friendship contain an inherent dynamic which can generate the conditions
for their own supersedence. The fact that the three patterns of friendship
dovetail to form an easily navigable channel encourages the actors to institutionalize their deepening intimacy by proceeding conventionally from
one pattern to the next. This movement of individuals from casual to trusting forms of friendship integrates the society by acting as a kind of dynamic
social glue (Foster I96I: 1176) which links the levels of interaction in the
community. Moreover, while embarking upon this natural social journey
from group to dyadic domains, the friends also bridge the conceptual gap
between public and private realms which defines the boundaries of individual secrecy. Thus, many of the psychological sources of atomism-suspicion, distrust, and anxiety-are overcome. At the same time, the friends
create overlapping co-operative sets which bind them at all levels to their
peers.
Third, because all forms of friendship, even the most utilitarian forms
of compromiso, contain some affective elements and satisfy some emotional
needs, if only the intrinsic need for social contact (Blau 1964: 16-7), friendship is always a prized and rewarding relationship which is practiced for
its own sake. It is this combination of affective and expedient properties,
this mixture of immediate and conceptual rewards, which has led the people
of the community, otherwise isolated, to appreciateand venerate friendship
as the highest moral value in their society. The cultural value attatched to
friendship elevates a simple relationship to the realm of ideology and generates a set of personality ideals which are internalized as aspects of the
individual's self-image. Thus, most concrete relationships in the pueblo are
guided at least in terms of outward behavior by the friendship model and
the friendship ideology acts as a mechanism for social control by restraining
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FRIENDSHIP
IN FUENMAYOR
323
disruptive behavior between social equals in all public contexts and encounters. As a final note, we should caution that this analysis is applicable
only to interaction between adult males of the same class who are responsive
to peer evaluation; it is valid for the behavior of women only when they are
interacting as members of a corporatehousehold. One important area which
anthropologists will have more difficultyin researchingis the relative paucity
of female friendships in atomistic and peasant societies and the consequences
of this phenomenon in terms of the total social behavior in such societies.
NOTES
i. Research in Spain took place during a twelve month period from 1972 to 1973 and
was supported by NIMH Fellowship #5-FOI-54765, for which support is gratefully acknowledged. I also wish to thank Ruben Reina, Richard Dillon, Margaret
Gilmore, M.D., and Cecile Gilmore for their helpful criticism of an earlier draft of
this paper.
2. The concept of socioculturalor interaction levels is modified from Steward (I95o:
106-114) and Wolf (I967: 300).
3. A pseudonym for a town at 37? 30'N in Seville Province. Farm mechanization and
consequent rural exodus have reduced the pueblo's population from a high of I2,000
recorded in 1950 to 7,600 recorded in I97I.
4. Eric Wolf (i966: Io), referring to a paper by Reina (I959), draws a categorical
distinction between emotional and instrumental types of friendship. The basic format
of this dichotomy is useful here as a guide to the conceptualizationof some of the
obvious differencesbetween friendship patterns in Fuenmayor,and I borrow the term
instrumental to describe compromiso. But I also must agree with Paine (1969: 506)
who argues that in the final analysis all friendship is "ultimately instrumental,"for
even confianza involves covert expedient elements.
5. Since the original formulation of the dyadic contract concept (Foster 1961) there
has been some discussion as to the relevancy of this model to societies in which
individualistic ties automatically implicate a group of nuclear kinsmen (Silverman
1965: 177-178; Boissevain I966: 25; Galt I974: 200n.) Although this criticism is valid
for most of the associationsnormally labelled dyadic, confianza is unambiguousin that
it representsa contract which is specificallyindividual and which explicitly excludes
the participationof even nuclear kinsmen.
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